No Sanchez, Modric, Sneijder, Nasri … nor any surprises

So the brilliant Alexis Sanchez is off to Barcelona, with the Catalan giants paying the best part of €30 million for the 22-year-old Chillean winger. Little surprise there, with most observers rating Sanchez as a player with genuine pretensions to join a very elite group of players at the top of the world game. Diminutive, quick, with mesmeric feet, Sanchez will likely replace Pedro Rodríguez or David Villa in Barça’s starting XI next season. He is an archetypal Barcelona player and will surely rise to world stardom under Pep Guardiola’s tutelage.

Manchester United was reportedly interested in the player, whom the red tops have repeatedly suggested as Old Trafford bound. There was even an argument – baseless as it turned out – that Sanchez preferred a move to England, with more opportunities for first team football supposedly on offer. The Udinese player will achieve that and more at the European Champions.

Sanchez’ transfer could mean relegation to the bench for Pedro, sale of Jeffren Suárez and possibly Villa too, especially if Barça is still keen on adding Cesc Fabregas’ considerable talents to the squad. Villa is an outstanding marksman but one that has suffered for Guardiola’s decision to deploy the incomparable Lionel Messi in a central attacking role. Moreover, despite Barça’s massive revenues – considerably more than United’s – the club also boasts the world’s largest wage bill necessitating a period of relative austerity.

Despite this fact, United could not – or possible would not – compete for a player that Sir Alex Ferguson’s team has tracked for three years.

Similarly, Chelsea’s aggressive approach to acquiring Luka Modrić will surely end – despite Daniel Levy’s protestations – in a multi-million pound transfer across London to Stamford Bridge, and not Old Trafford. With Roman Abramovich’s lust for football reinvigorated and Tottenham Hotspur’s historically selling its best players, Chelsea will increase the bid until west London achieves the transfer it desires. It may take all summer, with Modrić keen to repair bridges before departing.

After all, while the Croatian is not widely regarded as a player to cause trouble the very reasonable argument that a midfielder of his calibre should be playing in the Champions League is hard to counter. Without European football it is widely understood that Levy will rationalise Spurs’ playing resources this summer. The chairman is heading for a collision with manager Harry Redknapp, after the former Portsmouth chief demanded Levy buy two “top class” players; this to compete for a place in the top four and keep Modrić at White Hart Lane.

Ferguson’s admiration for the diminutive Croatian is well known but United cannot, and surely will not, compete with Chelsea for the 25-year-old’s signature if it comes to a bidding war. Michael Essien, Arjen Robben, John Obi Mikel and Michael Ballack will attest to Ambramovich’s unique powers of persuasion in the face of interest from Old Trafford.

Then there is Wesley Sneijder for whom has there is not a shred of evidence that the player is interested, let alone prepared to agitate for, a move away from Milan this summer. More to the point, the economics of a deal remain eye watering, with the Dutchman’s lengthy contract enabling Internazionale to demand a huge fee, while the Sneijder’s net wages exceed those of Wayne Rooney. Supporters should take summer speculation with a large pinch of salt.

A similar attitude might be relevant when it comes to Arsenal’s Samir Nasri, who has played a smart game during contract negotiations at the Emirates. Arsenal may well invest this summer to quell the Frenchman’s unrest; the club will also substantially increase an initial £90,000 per week offer.

What then of United’s plans to rebuild this summer? The club is already committed to deals for the teenager Phil Jones, goalkeeper David de Gea and winger Ashley Young but at least one marquee central midfield acquisition is surely a priority. At a minimum Ferguson may want to replace Paul Scholes, Darron Gibson and Owen Hargreaves. After two humiliating defeats to Barça in three years, the Catalans utterly dominant in midfield, replacement of that trio is truly a bare minimum.

It is instructive to note that of Ferguson’s last 12 acquisitions, including this summer’s business to date, none has been a central midfielder. With Scholes’ ageing legs, Hargreaves ongoing injuries, Gibson’s failure to improve and Anderson’s inconsistency, the decision not to strengthen last season bordered on the negligent.

Ferguson surely cannot repeat the trick?

Yet, with United unlikely to spend more than £30 million on an established talent under the Glazer family’s ownership, it remains to be see whether the Scot can improve his options in central midfield. Indeed, it leaves Ferguson with a dilemma; persuade the Glazer family to change established club policy, or revert to type and invest in a younger player with a high potential resale value.

How do you say that? No one claim SAF(for the past), as you see they are even involving in the market b/c they knew it,they need MF. if they can’t do that 19 will not play for us. we all need man utd get better every year,the profit is for glazier, I am sure no one need his head down like CL final.

If SAF or the Glazers are not going to shell out on a quality marque midfielder then i dont see the point in shelling out for a youngster as I believe the likes of Pogba. Morrison and co are as good as any young player out there.

before signing anyone else, SAF needs a decent assistance, wallace and gromit and good for nothing!!! We have no chnace of anything without a good, strategic and tactical assistance. Then we need a brand new midfield!!!

nothing said that hasn’t been said before. the entire footballing world knows united needs a potent addition in the center of midfield.

sounds a bit too pro-barca this piece also. all appreciation for the champions of europe and their football aside, it neglects pep’s heavy bias towards anything catalan (yaya toure case in point, and thus – the improbability of pedro getting relegated to bench). furthermore, the massive barca revenue mentioned should caveat by mentioning how majority of tv rights revenue is split between barca and madrid. were this sad case true in premiership, united would be right up there as well, no joke.

i have full faith the gaffer will add that quality CM this summer. aside from hope and belief, what else can football fans have during the silly season.

However, Levy said in a statement: “I wish to make it absolutely clear, as I have said previously, that none of our key players will be sold this summer. We are building a team for the future to consistently play at the highest level and retaining quality players is crucial to that.

“In respect of Luka Modric, we are not prepared to sell, at any price, to Chelsea Football Club or any other club.

We made our stance on this issue abundantly clear in writing to Chelsea. They chose to ignore it and then subsequently made the offer public.

“For the avoidance of any doubt, let me reiterate that we shall not enter into any negotiations whatsoever, with any club, regarding Luka. We now consider this matter closed.”

I would love to see us sell Carrick. I find him toothless and ineffectual. Bring through Pogba (future world-beater) and Morrison to supplement Cleveley, Anderson and Fletch. Buy Diarra and Sneijder and bingo! Instant top drawer midfield. I wouldn’t even mind if we have to job Nani in to get Sneijder. He is not consistant enough for me and we could get big money for himafter his one and only decent season for us

Reading articles like this is painful. Agree with redevil_83, nothing that hasn’t been said before, and more so the fact you place far to little faith in our squad let alone the most successful manager in history!

I see very little need in investing in a world class centre midfielder, waste of money! We have quality youth in the likes of Pogba, Cleverley and as much as everyone likes to bag on him i believe Anderson still has a future at United. These players have more then proved there worth, and i believe deserve a shot! Everyone told Fergie he’d lost it when he sold Ince, Hughes and Kanchelskis and put faith in the younger crop.

Speculation is always going to be there, but we really know very little of whats actually going on. I have faith in Fergie and the squad, after all, the “weakest” United team ever managed to win #19…

Scott – Pogba isn’t ready, not even close. Cleverley might be a good player but there’s plenty of question marks. He isn’t a Scholes clone that’s for sure. I suspect he’ll be used as Valencia’s understudy this year, especially if Nani ends up leaving.

Great article, I unfortunately think you could be on the money. This is so frustrating. Fail to see the point in buying Ashley Young or even Phil Jones unless we buy a world class midfielder. In reality we probably need 2 midfielders before buying a winger or centre back. Carrick needs to be replaced as the fulcrum of the team while we also need to replace Scholes.

Whilst I agree with your comments re Sneijder, Nasri and Sanchez, you are well wide of the mark on your Modric observations. You have fallen into the old trap of looking at a potential transfer from the buying club perspective, and possibly that of the player, but largely ignored the motivations of the selling club- in this case Tottenham.

Having supported Spurs for over 40 years the list of players sold by the club under heavy pressure is indeed a short one, and very often due to extenuating circumstances eg Waddle and Gascoigne had to be sold due to the club facing bankruptcy in 1991. Recently the sales of Carrick and Berbatov were due mainly to the players having only 2 years left on their contracts- this is when the alarm bells ring at WHL due to the Campbell fiasco. In fact within a year Berbatov was entitled to leave under a “Webster”, meaning he could buy his contract out for about £2.5m, Levy had no choice, especially in view of his appalling behavior.The rationalisation you speak of concerns players surplus to requirements ie dos Santos, Keane, Bentley, O’Hara, Hutton, Palacios, possibly a striker, and Bassong has been granted a transfer.Not the likes of Bale or Modric. The press depict Spurs as a selling club, but ignore that Arsenal under far less pressure have recently sold Overmars, Petit, Anelka and Henry. Equally the press ignore that Utd gave in over Ronaldo, and caved in over Rooney’s demands, which has messed up your wage structure.

Coming back to Modric, Levy has painted himself in to such a tight corner that there is only one realistic way he can sanction a deal. That is if Modric kicks up a “Berbatov” sulk, which is unlikely, and at the same time Chelsea (or Utd) bid high, around £45m. If Levy sells under any other circumstances there will be calls for his resignation. High bids from Chelsea or Utd are unlikely, Levy has a fractured relationship with both clubs, therefore their inclination will be to screw Spurs with low bids. Levy won’t be able to sanction bids in the £30-35m bracket, it would be a massive climbdown. Even the bookies now have Spurs favourites to hang onto Modric.

What an utterly pointless article. United are strong in every position of the field bar CM. Modric is too much of a struggle to pry away, Nasri is just wanting more wages and Sneijder is obviously keen to move to Old Trafford. Proof ? Quotes from him etc. Sneijder in my opinion is the final piece to the jigsaw if only he was 2 years younger Fergie would buy him in a heartbeat.Would love to see Sneijder at United? Yes but it won’t happen. Would love to see a new striker also if Berba is let go.

Luca ain’t gone yet and i feel Spurs are for once gonna make a stance,it was different with Berbatoss as he was just a slippery knacker who’s sulking was bringing every one at Spurs down anyway.Still i would have loved it if Levy let the skunk rot in the reserves

Sanchez move to Barcelona will make them even stronger this season. Have not heard any movement for Douglas Costa. He is still available for around 20 million and as the manager of Shakhtar Donestek said, Costa is equal to Messi in quality as Costa can go past 4 players with ease. What makes Costa deadly is that he is a strong two-footed player and can hit a ball 25 yards out with either foot straight into goal and not a man move. Would make a great central attacking midfielder for United. Ashley Young will not have that much of an impact. I rate Ravel Morrison over Ashley Young. We need impact players, world class midfielders.

This is the most pessimistic outlook and of course it floats across every United faithful’s mind once in a while. But lets hope we get someone good enough to grace our midfield. The world is full of excellent players and every year there are new players emerging from the shadow into stardom. With good scouting, I have enough faith in SAF to bring in quality players. You should notice that regular players of United always are good enough to fight for the big prize and its not like we’re depending on Bebe-like to grace the theater of dream.

I’m starting to become a little disappointed. Young, Jones, De Gea add depth but not an extra level of quality to the squad. Don’t lead us to believe we’re going to be aggressive in the transfer market and then not deliver. I’m really hoping/praying SAF and Gill have a surprise in store but not counting on it. All we’ve done is identify big targets and let others go after them. It appears weak and that is not good.

Udinese president Giamapalo Pozzo this morning has come out and said that Sanchez has not signed for Barcelona. He goes on to say that he does not know where this rumour came from but Barcelona came up short in their bid for Sanchez.United are presently the highest bidder for Sanchez but they can still be outbid by Barcelona or Man. City. Its going to come down to who Sanchez wants to play for as he seems to be the most sort after player on the transfer market.
Well Alfonso, I do believe SAF is trying to strengthen the midfield with some quality players but his problem is, he takes too long to make a move on players and bang, they are gone off to other clubs. Chasing Sanchez for three years and doing nothing about it until now when he now costs about 30 million is just not good enough. Last year, he could have bought Sanchez for 15 million.SAF is just too slow in getting his men when the price is right.

@Herbie I agree with this. Another one was Sneijder when he was at Real Madrid. Why was he not part of the Ronaldo deal? Sneijder or Diarra would add to our current midfield. Carrick plays the ball too slow, he isn’t defensive or an attacking midfielder. Giggs is very good in there but really? Anderson to inconsistent. Fletcher is excellent, Cleverly unproven. We need to buy at least one or two proven mid-fielders otherwise we might win the league but the CL is over.

I know it may sound crazy and I’m not SAF…. but I’m not shocked if United isn’t going for any world class midfielder which all of us crave for!

I can see Wayne Rooney playing in midfield. His passing techniques have improved in the past few seasons and his long range shots is second to none. He has the aggression and stamina to run all day so in conclusion, he can fill Scholes boots. And if we really bought Ashley Young then Young will play the no. 10 role. Wild guess, the starting line up will look like:

Where you getting this from? Fergie has not said a single word to the press since the transfer window opened, and it’s still only June. We’ve still got a month before pre-season starts and nearly 2 months before the season proper starts, and you’re already drawing a conclusion on the situation? I highly doubt Fergie would be so blind as to ignore the central midfield situation after we made such hard work of winning back the league title last season from such relatively weak competition, and historically he’s always kept his cards close to his chest when it comes to his transfer targets, so just because nothing’s been confirmed yet doesn’t mean it’s not gonna happen. If we get to the start of our pre-season programme and there’s still no central midfielder on the horizon, then fair enough, start despairing, but don’t jump the gun just yet FFS!

Our purchases the last two summers clearly point to a long term plan in my eyes. I never thought we’d get Sanchez, as we have Nani and Valencia, both top quality. In midfield we are in need of a replacement for Scholes, but whats to stop SAF from getting a relatively unknown player that in 2-3 years time will be right up there?

It’s still early transferwindow. If August comes and we still havent signed anyone for the midfield, then we should be entitled to be a bit worried. To start now is just giving yourself high bloodpressure, and thats without a kick of the ball of the 2011-2012 season

I get it from how he never replaced keane, didn’t start making plans for like without scholes when he got that six month eye problem (stuck giggs in midfield instead) and has ignored the fact scholes has been struggling off and on for a couple of years since his indian summer

Manchester united has got a good scouting network period! But then wats the benefit of having good scouts when all u do is watch talent grow until its stolen right under your nose?
For those of u that r saying its to early to complain, wat do u get wen u sign a player 2days before the close of the transfer window? Crap!!!

I think Ed’s pretty much summed it up…
It sickens me to think of the number of times Chelski’s rubles have snatched a player from under our noses.
Modric set to go the same way.Im not even looking at the Sneijder snippets thats one pipe dream.
Ashley bloody young…if thats confirmed I fail to see what we lack that he can add to…
All braced to hear about faith in youth and no value
Just prayong that the gaffer can pull another one out of the hat…I don’t think he’d be loath to spend when we so woeful in midfield it just whats been oft mentioned we just don’t have the funds

It has been couple season that we want fergie to buy scholes replacement,but he never buy one..in my opinion he want ROONEY to play that role,rooney have good abilities to be a great attacking midfield.
I feel sory for rooney cause fergie keep changing his position…

A horrible pessimistic thread, we are defending champions appear to be spending more by recent standards crucially more then other sides. and because we have not signed X and Y people are complaining and talking of next year being a write off.

We are replacing Scholes and Van DeSar, Scholes was poor last year, Van DeSar had a good year but was no where near as good as people think.

Chelsea are in need of more rebuilding then us, City still a bit away, Arsenal look to be in crisis we will be fine.

squigs – All of that is true. I guess the question is this: Ferguson is spending £50m on Jones, Young and De Gea but essentially all that spending is to stand still. How will United improve to meet the challenge of domestic rivals with larger budgets and a Barca team that is miles ahead on the pitch?

Thank God you’re only the “editor” of an amateur blog. First he admits that other teams have larger budgets, then he complains that United can’t buy the best players. That’s right, no surprises. Pointless article, wasting people’s time.

As it stands, the signings and recalls United have made thus far have all improved the squad – bar VDS – but that was inevitable. Cleverley, Welbeck, Young and Jones are far, far better than Gibson, Bebe, Obertan and Brown.

We’re obviously short in midfield and I dont believe that the likes of Tennicliffe, Pogba and Morrison are ready. We’re clearly going to bring in some central midfielders. The real issue here is that the papers dont have a clue who we’re targeting and that is making people fidgety. We have no idea what work is being done behind the scenes. Fergie wont let this many players leave without a plan in place.

I expect us to pick up a player such as these: Ever Banega, Mario Goetze, Marvin Martin or Javi Martinez. Young, very talented and ready for the move to a big club. I don’t expect Sneijder, Nasri or Sanchez arriving. I think Modric is still a possibility, albeit slim.

Ed said:
squigs – All of that is true. I guess the question is this: Ferguson is spending £50m on Jones, Young and De Gea but essentially all that spending is to stand still. How will United improve to meet the challenge of domestic rivals with larger budgets and a Barca team that is miles ahead on the pitch?

To be honest Ed, I am not picking arguments with your piece, it’s more to do with the overeaction of certain posters here. While you talk of standing still they talk of next year been a write off, that is not the Manchester United way, imagine this place had been around when we sold Ince, Andrei K and Hughes and replaced them with no one.

We can still win league titles in a rebuilding phase, in my opinion we could spend 200 million this summer and still not win the European cup, Barca are miles ahead for the moment and we know that. But this is the best way to catch up, their first XI is younger then our first XI and buy investing in young player we will catch them.

With Jones and Smalling we potentially have England’s central defensive pairing for the next 10 years,

De Gea is young but has considerable experience and is already on the fringes of the Spain team and they have talented keepers in abundance.

OllieWillie – then don’t. I suggest ManUtd.com for undiluted positivity. You’ve been repeating this message for quite some time now. Perhaps you’d better make good on the ‘threat’ lest you lose credibility?

Nah I’ll keep coming back because you guys are one of the few blogs that contain staff that actually know how for form pros, as opposed to just regurgitating words onto a page and pressing post…….I guess I’m just hoping that you’ll start posting the occasional positive message, after all United did just win number 19 and make the Champions League final, it’s not all doom and gloom.

I’m not sure what all the doom and gloom about Modric is, the situation is still the same as it ever was. We want him, but he’ll be very expensive. He’s not destined for the Chavs, far from it since it’s obvious from their low bids that they can’t afford to pay top dollar for him. Instead they’re doing their best to unsettle the player. We look like we’re playing a canny game by watching how that pans out, and if Spurs become resigned to letting him go, we can come in with a higher bid than Chelsea.

“Badges, to god-damned hell with badges! We have no badges. In fact, we don’t need badges. I don’t have to show you any stinking badges, you god-damned cabrón and ching’ tu madre! Come out from that shit-hole of yours. I have to speak to you.”

its was sad to see utd lose such a one sided game against barca but then thought it was a good thing for the long therm. what has happened this summer so far ie going for young before sanchez proves we wont or cant compett at the top level. i think we will be alright next session but then well slide. i used to always watch all the utd games but over the last year ive been watching fewer. people say we won the premership but i thought we where utd and we win in style when was the last time that happened?

It’s early days yet, but unfortunately, I think Ed is spot on target. We just don’t go for the big names anymore — and don’t seem likely to.

We HAD to buy a goal keeper, but we can muddle through with no new midfielder and still be competitive next year. Somebody upstairs knows this. The Jones/Young signings are both incredibly underwhelming and our inability to buy Ozil last year looks even worse now.

And the difference is that other teams regressed while we essentially regressed less.

So the relevant question is do you really think Arsenal, Liverpool and Chelsea will continue to slip this year — or do you think they will buy new players and get better, the way City has?

Right now, we have a worse side than 2011. No Van Der Sar, no Scholes. Giggs will probably be less effective next year, too, so where does that leave us? A worse side. That’s where. We need an infusion of talent just to get back to where we were last season — and we will need even more talent if we want to be better than we were last season…

I think a lot if the analysis of the champions league final has been myopic. Yes our midfield was outclassed, but barca are tactically miles ahead of anyone. They pocess more attacking threat than anyone else, whilst retaining possession better and pressing better than anyone else, maybe ever. We won’t match/beat them through the checkbook alone, it needs medium to longer term planning. The changes to youth coaching are welcome and have a youth cup whose excellent players are all midfielders.

Part of what has been so rewarding this year has been that fergie has managed to win whilst being outspent by many others. I hate the glazers, but this victory has been very sweet for the lack of financial dopping. When eventually city win something useful, who gives a fuck. A billion might buy you a premiership but a very hallow one.

Jones and De Gea have been important signings but what do you all think about Ashley Young? Ed what do you reckon?

There is speculation in The Independent that an initial fee of £16 million has been agreed with Villa. Another 50% premium yet again just because a player is British! I’m not convinced about this transfer at all. Young has a good work rate but in terms of quality he doesn’t match Nani or Valencia. He has no Champions League experience and limited International experience despite being older than both Nani and Valencia. He probably has more quality than Park though, perhaps he will move on? Sod it, I would much rather keep Park!

What gets me the most is that this money plus the money allocated to Bebe’s transfer could have come close to matching the fee required for Alexis Sanchez. I know hindsight is a wonderful thing, it’s just that there seems to have been no foresight in the planning of all this. Surely a dead cert like Sanchez would have had our scouts going mad to try to sign him over the past 3 years? Understand that he may have preferred to move to Spain anyway but wish we could have signed him.

Would like to hear everyone’s views on why United have opted to go for Young…

United have been short in the central midfield area since 2007 when Milan slaughtered us in the CL semi. Ronaldo, Rooney and Tevez masked that weakness with fast and incisive attacking play but we always struggled with teams that overloaded the centre or teams with good midfielders. I happen to think we need at least 2 central midfielders. We do not need Young and Jones at 20 million will not seem good business for another couple of years. We won the league because of SAF but don’t blind yourselves, our weaknesses have been there for everyone to see for some years and he has stubbornly refused to do anything about it. Either that or he has not had the money. But hey, with the money he spent on Bebe, Obertan and Young, we probably could have bought a decent midfielder. Value, what value?

I think that the long term strategy is being considered and although we like to play 442 its now considered archaeic and innefectual. Most of the top teams have stopped playing this as their lead system. I now think Fergie is thinking about this especially with the barca display.

I think players such as Mata and Martinez, the future key players in the spanish national side would be superb additions. Are both in the early twenties so by the time Pogba, Tunnicliffe and Morrison are hitting 21 -22 they will be hitting 26 – 27. I am sure they would add a positive indluence to our play. I also echo one of the other posters and suggest we pick up a coach whom is prevalent in the Barca, Spanish systems to aid fergie in improving our possession play.

we’ve been short in midfield for longer than just since 07, infact that season was probably the only one in the best seven or eight we haven’t looked short because fergie got lucky with scholes having one of his best ever years, no one saw that coming after six months out, fergie got fucking lucky, before and after than our midfield has been crap, its probably currently at its worse point

people will bring up the djemba miller kleberson years, but we had keane and scholes then albeit past it or legless, we’ve got nobody now, one bastard son one bollockless shitehouse and one shit haired fat brazilian bongo beanhead bastard bellend bollockface um cunt

Fox Sports Report tonight is saying Sanchez looks likely to join Man City as they have now bid 33 million for the player.
United will need to match that bid because Sanchez prefers United to City. The only other thing I see happening is Rooney will play in a central attacking midfield position and SAF will look to buy a world class striker to partner Hernandez. Samuel Etto would be perfect but he is 30 years old and so is Berbatov and Michael Owen. So what will be Fergie’s next move? All the top midfielders are being sold to other teams, as the bidding wars continue.

I still think if anybody buys Modric it’s most likely to be us. We’ve almost got all the rest of our transfer business sorted out already, so the club will have the rest of the summer to focus on getting our central midfielder star, and all the indications are that Modric is the man Fergie wants. Even at over £30M, he’d be much better value than Sneijder if you consider that his wages would be probably be £4-5M less than Sneijder’s each season, plus he’s younger so you’d have him for much longer or be able to sell him on. On top of that, I also think he’s probably better suited to the set up of our team these days – we want a team that gets the best out of Rooney, instead of making Rooney job it in sub-optimal positions.

Chelsea are our main rivals for Modric, but the only real advantage they have is that they are in London. They can probably offer less money than we could, since they are also dealing with the cost of replacing their manager and bringing in several other new players. Also, we’ve got the rest of our business sorted out, but Chelsea’s a total mess looking for a new manager and everything, so we’re in a much better position to decide on who we want and make a decisive offer.

I really like the thought of having Carrick, Fletcher, Anderson, and Modric as our proper central midfield players. Each of them has very different qualities and style of play. I just don’t think Sneijder fits into that picture nearly as neatly. Provided Anderson steps on in performances and consistency, and Fletch recovers from his illness to regain the form he had for the previous couple of seasons, that would be a very competitive midfield.

Yeah I know, but I’m always surprised to remind myself of how young Anderson is – he’s just turned 23. He hasn’t been a disaster by any stretch, and he’s had a lot of bad injuries. If he stays injury-free this season, I think he’ll play well. Whether he’ll ever live up to initial hopes is another matter, but I think we let early bloomers like Rooney and Fabregas make us think everybody should be delivering the good by the age of 20, and it’s not at all unusual for players in positions like Anderson’s to take a while to shine.

Jones deal done – he’s a United player. The general feeling is that De Gea will sign after the U21 European Championships. I think he’s showing class by not openly speaking of the transfer until it happens – after all he is still an Atletico player.

João Moutinho is a name I’ve not heard for a while. Surprised he hasn’t been linked with United, can play DM or AM. Probably on Chelsea’s shopping list now I would suspect.

On the issue of Anderson, how anyone who scouted him could believe he was the “new Ronaldihno” as is reported, I will never know! As well as his overrated physical attributes, his other major problem is the thing between his two ears. His application in recent times has been appalling. Too much of a playboy.

Well, Shakhtar are saying they are wiling to sell Douglas Costa, so I don’t know what SAF is waiting for. Natural, gifted attacking left winger or central attacking midfielder.
Next season, he will be worth 30 milion and then he will be gone to Real Madrid or Chelsea. If Ashley Young has been brought in to be the central attacking midfielder, then heaven help us all.

Man United prem champions .
Barcelona beat Man utd in two games.
Not the end the world,one might think
but improvement definitely needed
particularly as Scholes,Giggs, Ferdinand ,VDS and Hargreaves
all either ending or coming to end of careers.
Not only are United in serious need of catching up now on Barcelona Real but the Spanish teams are only likely to progress further with top acquisitions. I mean Sanchez to Barcelona will put Barcelona if possible into an even higher gear.
The gap is growing and signings such as Jones and Young are nowhere near good enough if we want to compete with top Spanish and Premiership clubs who are rebuilding with far more cash available than Fergie has available.
WE need to get the Glazers and Fergie out otherwise we are in for a big shock not only on the European front but on the domestic scene also.
Complacency is the enemy we need to be worried and need to act to secure Uniteds dominance.

Alfonso Bedoya said:
De Gea was necessary, Jones was planning for the future… but Young is a joke, if he’s supposed to be the answer to our shitty midfield…

If he’s competition (and not a replacement) for Nani, then he’s a good signing albeit one that is not a massive priority. If Fergie sees him as a solution to our central midfield woes, he’s potentially a bad signing.
Sadly for him, if we don’t sort our central midfield this summer, Young is going to be the fall-guy here, there and everywhere. He’s a good, solid back-up option (I rate him as a player) but it’s high time we stopped fannying about and started signing more world-beaters.
He could well turn out to be a decent signing if utilised properly. Nobody had huge expectations of Valencia and he’s done alright.

In fairness to Young, he is a good age and the kind of player suited to a fast counter attacking game, People close to the United scouting team vouched for his professionalism which was the main reason we signed him and not the more erratic Agbonlahor.

We have slightly overpaid and his position is not an immediate priority, but I think he might surprise us a bit. If he can find form of two seasons ago then his excellent crosses and corners will offer a real threat.

Think of a Dwight Yorke scenario, a player who improved in leaps and bounds once he was playing alongside better players.